Rob Owers
Head of News, Government and Regional Partnerships, Twitter UK

THE BLOG

How #EUref Played Out on Twitter

24/06/2016 13:34 BST
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Updated
25/06/2017 10:12 BST

Dado Ruvic / Reuters

It was an unprecedented day for UK politics - and the live conversation on Twitter is still roaring.

The intense political debate saw 6.4 million Tweets about the EU Referendum (#EUref) sent from 7am when the polls opened on Thursday, to 10am on Friday as the nation reacted to @David_Cameron's resignation speech.

During the Prime Minister's resignation, Twitter usage in the UK was double its normal levels. It was also the peak in conversation during the entire #EUref campaign.

Here were the biggest peaks in conversations on Twitter since polls closed at 10pm on Thursday night.

It's also not often that we see the name of a country trend - in that country.

At 8am on Friday morning "The UK" was trending in the UK. #EUref topics have dominated trends on Twitter for the whole of Friday so far.

Throughout the campaign, anyone has been able to track the trends, spikes and swings on Twitter via our EU Data Hub, in partnership with the Press Association and Blurrt.

From the outset the Leave campaign was the most talked about - consistently generating around 55-70% of all conversation about the referendum.

On polling day itself - for the first and only time in the six-week campaign it was suddenly the Remain camp which led the conversation.

Throughout the campaign, our data has shown that the economy was by far the most discussed topic - well ahead of Foreign Relations, Immigration or Security.

In the coming days and weeks the live conversation will continue to happen on Twitter, with the UK watching for breaking news, live reaction, and the opportunity to ask questions and challenge those in power.